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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Massachusetts Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez visit the memorial to the Boston Marathon bombings on June 6, 2013.
(Shira Schoenberg for MassLive.com)

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani slammed the Obama administration’s response to the attack at the U.S. consulate in Libya during a campaign stop in Boston with Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez.

Giuliani, a Republican, was the mayor of New York during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and earned the nickname “America’s mayor” for his handling of the attacks.

Visiting the memorial to the victims of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings in Boston, the outspoken New Yorker focused on issues of national security. He criticized Gomez’s Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey for being weak on national security, but reserved his harshest statements for a figure of more national prominence – U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, whom Democratic President Barack Obama recently appointed as his national security adviser.

“We’ve been given so many lies about Benghazi, include lies by the person who’s just been named the national security adviser to the president, which I have to believe is some kind of payoff for what she did that day,” Giuliani said.

The attack in Benghazi killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others on the 11th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Congress has been holding hearings on the government’s handling of the attacks, and questions have been raised about security and about early statements made by the administration. Rice, immediately after the attack, claimed it was a spontaneous protest prompted by anti-Islam film. It was later revealed to be a planned terrorist attack.

Giuliani recalled waiting before a CNN appearance, when Rice said on television that the attacks were the result of a spontaneous demonstration. “I can’t repeat to you what I said in the conference room when I heard that. It begins with the word bull,” Giuliani said.

“You had to be a fool to say that. You had to be a fool or you had to be liar,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani said no one carries rocket propelled hand grenades or blows holes in walls at a spontaneous demonstration. “If the ambassador to the UN didn’t look at those talking points and say ‘Oh my God I can’t repeat this, it’s too stupid to repeat,’ then she shouldn’t be national security adviser,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani said the administration should answer questions about why the consulate wasn’t given additional security and why U.S. military forces were not sent to respond to the attack. Giuliani called Rice’s explanation “absurd.” “It took two seconds for me to figure out that the explanation was wrong and it took me three seconds to figure out the motivation for it. It was a presidential election that…they didn’t want to show the State Department turned down numerous requests for additional security for the very compound,” he said.

The Benghazi attacks came up in the Massachusetts Senate race Wednesday night during the first debate of the general election. Markey has criticized Republicans for focusing the investigation into Benghazi on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a potential Democratic contender for the presidency in 2016.

Markey said during the debate that Congress should use their subpoena power to find out what happened in Benghazi and ensure it does not happen again – and should not turn the hearings into “another Republican circus trying to go after Hillary Clinton.”

Gomez accused Markey of politicizing the attacks. “What you saw last night was somebody who was more worried about the reputation of a former secretary of state’s potential run for presidency in 2016 than figuring out what happened in Benghazi,” Gomez said Thursday.

This is not Giuliani’s first visit to Massachusetts on behalf of a state candidate. Giuliani visited in November 2012 to campaign with Republican Sen. Scott Brown. He previously campaigned with former Republican Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, Paul Cellucci and Mitt Romney.

Giuliani ran for president in 2008 but withdrew after a poor showing in the early primaries. He considered running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, but decided against it.

Giuliani, like Gomez and Brown, has a reputation as a fiscal conservative but a social moderate, though his views do not line up completely with Gomez’s. Giuliani supports abortion rights and civil unions for gay couples. Gomez supports gay marriage and opposes abortion. Giuliani supported gun control measures in New York and a ban on assault weapons. Gomez supports expanded background checks on gun sales, but opposes a ban on assault weapons.

Giuliani, speaking to reporters, praised Gomez for his service as a Navy SEAL and criticized Markey for votes he took on national security. For example, while Markey voted eight times to honor the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, he voted against two similar resolutions, because he said they politicized the attacks and tied the Sept. 11 attacks to the war in Iraq. “You don’t think I resent the fact that Ed Markey voted against honoring the people who died on September 11 because the word Iraq was in that resolution?” Giuliani said.

Markey spokesman Andrew Zucker responded, "Gabriel Gomez can bring in as many national Republicans as he wants between now and Election Day, and it will only reinforce the fact that Gomez embraces the national Republican agenda to block commonsense gun laws, protect tax breaks for millionaires, enact devastating cuts to Social Security and end a woman's right to choose."

Gomez and Giuliani visited a Boston fire station, then walked several blocks to the memorial for the Boston Marathon bombings, with a pack of media trailing them and passersby snapping cell phone pictures.

Both seemed to enjoy the spectacle. Giuliani swiped a raw littleneck clam off a diner’s plate at a seafood restaurant, while both stopped to chat with Marcel Bell, an enthusiastic homeless man who exclaimed “Is that the original Rudy Giuliani?” They took pictures and signed autographs. Two women recognized Giuliani from across a busy street and yelled, “Our mayor, we love you!”

At the memorial, Gomez and Giuliani somberly walked by the running shoes, crosses, flowers and flags. The most poignant moments came when residents told Giuliani about the bombing. Shane O’Hara, store manager at Marathon Sports told the mayor that one bomb went off right outside the store. Four injured people were brought inside, and the staff used the clothing they were supposed to be selling to form tourniquets and gauze. Asked whether life was returning to normal, O’Hara said there was now a “new normal.”

Giuliani responded by telling O’Hara about his own experiences dealing with the attacks on the World Trade Center. “There will always be a big gap,” Giuliani said. Giuliani said he still watches old movies and looks for the World Trade Center. “I can’t pass the new one without thinking of the old one,” he said. “To me, it’s not the same as the old.”

“It’s always a bit of a struggle going past it,” Giuliani told O’Hara. “It never goes away. But you’ve got to put it somewhere and go on with your life.”